Indonesia

Indonesia is a treasure chest of biodiversity; it is home to between 10 and 15 per cent of all known species of plants, mammals and birds. Orang-utans, elephants, tigers, rhinoceroses, more than 1,500 species of birds and thousands of plant species are all a part of the country's natural legacy.

The mass destruction of Indonesia's rainforests and carbon-rich peatlands for palm oil and paper threatens this and is the main reason why Indonesia is one of the world's largest emitters of climate changing greenhouse gases.

The lives of millions of Indonesians who depend on the forests for food, shelter and livelihoods are also changing beyond recognition as the forest disappears.

This destruction also threatens our wider world; peatlands are perhaps the world's most critical carbon stores, and Indonesia's peatlands are vast, storing about 35 billion tonnes of carbon. When these peatlands are drained, burned and replaced by plantations, carbon dioxide is released and the conditions are set for devastating forest fires, which were responsible, for instance, for Singapore's 'haze wave' in 2013.

The latest updates

Sitting in the towering United Nation's building on New York's east side, it might be hard for world leaders to picture a destroyed forest, but I know just how depressing the site is. In Indonesia, and elsewhere, we've seen vast tracks...

Some of the world’s biggest palm oil companies have suspended their forest destruction. Is this a ceasefire or the end of their war on forests?
We refuse to stand by while palm oil companies turn forests to plantations. We started...

Cargill, the largest importer of palm oil into the United States, one of the world's largest commodities traders and a palm oil producer itself, made a pledge to break the link between its palm oil and deforestation, peat destruction...

A new study published last week shows Indonesia's forests are disappearing faster than anywhere else in the world.
In Sumatra and Kalimantan, much of this destruction is in forested peatlands. Draining and clearing peatland forests has a...

Indonesia's forests are the third largest in the world and its swamp-like peatlands are one of the world's biggest carbon stores. But decades of forest clearance to make way for industrial scale plantations is creating a tinderbox. Smoke from...